While Fabrice was gone a-hunting after love adventures in a small village close by Parma, the Fiscal General, Rassi, unaware that he was so near, continued to treat his case as though he had been a Liberal.  The witnesses for the defense he pretended that he could not find, or rather that he had frightened them off; and finally, after nearly a year of such sharp practice, and about two months after Fabrice’s last return to Bologna, on a certain Friday, the Marquise Raversi, intoxicated with joy, stated publicly in her salon that on the following day “the sentence which had just been passed upon that little Del Dongo would be presented to the Prince for signature, and would be approved by him.”  Shortly afterwards the Duchess learned these remarks of her enemy.

“The Count must be very poorly served by his agents,” she said to herself:  “only this morning he was sure that sentence could not be passed inside of a week:  perhaps he would not be sorry to have my young Grand Vicar removed from Parma some day.  But,” she added, “we shall see him come back, and he shall be our Archbishop.”  The Duchess rang.

“Summon all the servants to the waiting-room,” she said to her valet-de-chambre, “even the cooks; go and obtain from the officer in command the requisite permit for four post-horses; and see that in less than half an hour these horses are attached to my landau.”  All her women were soon busied in packing the trunks:  the Duchess hastily donned a traveling dress, without once sending word to the Count; the idea of amusing herself at his expense filled her with joy.

“My friend,” she said to the assembled servants, “is about to suffer condemnation by default for having had the audacity to defend his life against a madman; it was Giletti who meant to kill him.  You have all been able to see how gentle and inoffensive Fabrice’s character is.  Justly incensed at this atrocious injury, I am starting for Florence.  I shall leave ten years’ wages for each of you; if you are unhappy, write to me; and so long as I have a sequin, there shall be something for you.”

The Duchess felt exactly as she spoke, and at her last words the servants burst into tears; she herself had moist eyes.  She added in a voice of emotion:—­“Pray to God for me and for Monsigneur Fabrice del Dongo, first Grand Vicar of this Diocese, who will be condemned to-morrow morning to the galleys, or what would be less stupid, to the penalty of death.”

The tears of the servants redoubled, and little by little changed into cries which were very nearly seditious.  The Duchess entered her carriage and drove directly to the palace of the Prince.  In spite of the untimely hour, she solicited an audience, through General Fontana, acting aide-de-camp.  She was nowise in full court toilette, a fact which threw that aide-de-camp into a profound stupor.